Quotations

"I'm not comfortable with categories, and I distrust most definitions. The word 'definition' is based on the word 'finite,' which would seem to indicate that once we've defined something, we don't need to think about it anymore."

— Artie Shaw, American clarinet player, born 1910

"Jazz was born out of the whiskey bottle, was raised on marijuana, and will expire on cocaine."

— Artie Shaw, American clarinet player, born 1910

"That's the clarinet I used to use, but it's just a piece of wood you know, with holes in it and they put these clumsy keys on it and you're supposed to try to take that and manipulate it with throat muscles and chops, and try to make something happen that never happened before. And when you do, you never forget it. It beats sex, it beats anything."

— Artie Shaw, American clarinet player, born 1910

"Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed."

— George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright, born 1856

"Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can't sleep with the window open."

— George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright, born 1856

"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."

— George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright, born 1856

"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the airplane, the pessimist the parachute."

— George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright, born 1856

"Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made."

— Ted Shawn, pioneer of American modern dance, born 1891

"A ship in harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are for."

— John A. Shedd, American author, born 1928

"Would that there were an award for people come to understand the concept of enough. Good enough. Successful enough. Thin enough. Rich enough. Socially responsible enough. When you have self-respect, you have enough, and when you have enough, you have self-respect."

— Gail Sheehy, American author, born 1937

"If menopause is the silent passage, 'male menopause' is the unspeakable passage. It is fraught with secrecy, shame, and denial. It is much more fundamental than the ending of the fertile period of a woman's life, because it strikes at the core of what it is to be a man."

— Gail Sheehy, American author, born 1937

"I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. And the enemy was in us.
The war is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days. As I'm sure Elias will be, fighting with Barnes for what Rhah called possession of my soul.
There are times since, I've felt like the child born of those two fathers. But, be that as it may, those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life."

— Charlie Sheen, American actor, born 1965

"Activism is what I do to stay alive."

— Martin Sheen, American actor, born 1940

"Future generations are not going to ask us what political party were you in. They are going to ask what did you do about it, when you knew the glaciers were melting."

— Martin Sheen, American actor, born 1940